MY FAT CHANCE

Gotta Love a Bit of a Mo! No?

Race report is below once you click that button!

For a veteran runner (lol) I made a lot of rookie mistakes yesterday morning. I didn’t pack my race bag, I didn’t hydrate, I left my watch behind, I left my Nike sportsband behind, I didn’t do my business before leaving the house or when I arrived at the race, I didn’t wear conventional running socks and I left my newly purchased eGloves in my bag.

I’ve never been so silly before. I disrespected the race and the power of Greenwich Park’s Hills! My friend from RDC, Luke (above with his fine mo) hasn’t ran a 10K before and in the weeks building up to today he’s been training hard and recently jumped into the Cheetahs group on Tuesday nights so me and my friend said that we would pace him for his modest 55 minute time. But more on that later.

Me and my friends strolled up to the starting line. Right at the front. For the people that were “in it to win it” apparently. Not many up at the front were there for that, certainly not me!

Anyway, we got running and after about 2 mins I knew who would win the race! Me and Luke tried to go a bit faster than normal for the 1st km and then sort out some sort of pace. Thankfully he had a watch so I could get a rough idea of our pace. On top of that I did have my phone as well with Runkeeper on it but I started that early so I wouldn’t lose GPS or anything from starting a new activity, you know how it is…

The course is set out in 2 laps of the race route which I personally hate. It just reminds me (ironically) of running around in the park! I get bored these days of the seeing the same things, bah. So we go up and down the hills of the south, twice! Making it 4 uphills in total. They were brutal I tell ya. My motto these days for races and running in general is “the faster I go, the quicker I finish” that’s usually pain talking but I can say that it helps me at least.

 (uniqlo, one size fits all swag)

One of the best things about this 10k is that the RDC support team were there, rainbow and running man in hand they cheer us on! Absolutely brilliant. I didn’t actually know they had a rainbow sign until today. I ran past it on RTTB and must’ve been so running crazy that day that I thought it was real. I ran past them twice and loved every second of it, true stars! Charlie was also there at the end when I finished, great stuff!

As we run down these hills my stomach is telling me that I either need to stop RIGHT NOW or something else will happen RIGHT NOW. I didn’t need much more motivation than that itself to keep on running faster. Throughout the race I check with Luke what time we’re on and it became very clear that 55mins was safe in the bag. We were chasing a sub 50min 10k now!

We got that easy peasy, I power up the last hill of the race, run round the corner and sprint to that finish and to that toilet! Collect my medal and ran to the loo. Good times, great day! I have 2 times - 47:43 Time and 47:36 chip time. I have no idea what they are or why they’re different so I’ll just pick the middle time and say I came in 47:40! Not too shabby for a lad that was aiming to pace someone for a sub 55min 10k. Luke himself came in at 48:45 too. Well done bro!

A Special congrats to James as well who was actually “in it to win it” He smashed the 10k and left the rest of us for dust, well done mate. Stellar time of roughly 38:14! It couldn’t have gone to a nicer lad.